JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT
Live From The Ryman Vol. 2 (Thirty Tigers)
WHILE WE’RE TALKING Jason Isbell live, let’s take a minute to think about the situation next year where the multi-Grammy-winning American will be back in Australia for his third (I think) visit.
He will be playing arenas around the country, 10,000-20,000 seaters, the kind of rooms he can regularly play these days in the USA, though a considerable step up from previous Australian tours. But he’ll be playing on the undercard of Paul Kelly’s shows, between headliner Kelly and opener Fanny Lumsden.
This is admittedly an excellent lineup, but it’s still a bit odd for someone of Isbell’s stature to play second fiddle, even in a gesture of respect for Kelly as a songwriter and Australian giant, or as a way of coming back here with fewer overheads and demands but a chance to find a new audience. (Incidentally, these will also be Kelly’s biggest shows ever, 40+ years into his career, while you can read a review of his new album here next week.) And there will be a number of us who have seen him in smaller rooms previously who will quietly grumble about losing some of the relative intimacy we have enjoyed – though we’re always going to grumble about that aren’t we?
Like I said, odd. Anyway, if those Kelly fans unfamiliar with the American have any doubt about what Isbell and friends might bring to the table, this second of two Live From The Ryman collections – drawing from 50 shows in the past decade at the most storied room in country music, the first one came out in 2018, with Vol 2 mostly drawing on post-2018 albums – should blow away their hesitations.
There is a muscularity to this band on stage, beyond that shown on record. It’s not just power, it is the solidity of each step, the certainty in what is not done as much is what is done. It is there in the way the opening song, Save The World, bursts out of its restraint at 2minutes 30, drums and backing vocals punching harder as Isbell pointedly doesn’t, choosing to deepen instead. And it is there in Middle Of The Morning when Isbell throws higher, part cry and part hope, as the band keeps things to almost a murmur for a song that eases its way through a southern reflection.
Cast Iron Skillet is offered acoustically, minimally, conversationally, yet it has in its distant accordion (from keyboardist Derry deBorja) and the small fractures in his voice, its low-key rhythmic guitar and brief showings of slide guitar, enough space to bring every implication of family history to the fore. Meanwhile, Miles is a guitar fest of conflicting parties, the interactions thickened by organ that brings the church to the party, but rather than run away with the guitar heroics, Isbella and Sadler Vaden cut back-and-forth into each other’s lanes.
There are some guitar solos here that even those of us who generally could take or leave that business must sink into and (appreciatively) ride to the very end. They are very, very, good players. The apogee of this is undoubtedly the final track, This Ain’t It: nine minutes of pure southern rock, mixing soloing with group vamping, soaring exploratory lines with slinky grooves, and meaty chugs that dance. If you end up thinking Allman Brothers Band you’d not be wrong, and you’d not be insulting the memory either.
And in amongst the original songs there is a cover of Tom Petty’s Room At The Top, with Amanda Shires (sadly no longer in the band, or his marriage) bringing both her voice and violin as subtle counterpoints to a song whose pre-emptive ache is palpable. You’d pay to hear a set of all the Petty songs the band did across its Ryman run in 2017.
The flaw in this live concert album is the absence of flaws, or at least the presence of a sheen which removes some of the heat and sweat and smudges, the human-ness, of a live show. The playing is superb, the sound is superb, the songs are superb, but while there’s no rule that says shows must have flubs and misses, a 400 Unit show always has moments of pure elevation for the audience, of their/our passion meeting connection meeting genius that emerge from exactly that unstable human-ness, and there is a feeling here that the peaks are a fraction more academic for the simple fact there are no valleys.
A pointless whinge, especially when I clearly really love hearing these shows? Yeah, probably. Not in doubt though is that Kelly and band will want to be on song coming on after this lot next year.
READ MORE
LISTEN MORE
Comments